Good morning Green Panda friends. Our 20’s can definitely be a difficult time in our lives. I always say that my years between 21 and 25 years old were the most confusing and the most difficult times in my life. However they were also the times where I had the most personal growth and the time when I found myself as a person. I wouldn’t want to go back and be 23 years old again because it was a very emotional and financially stressful time of my life. Actually I am not sure if that is true I would love to be 23 years old again but with the personality, maturity and knowledge that I have now at 32 years old.
When you are a 20-something who is trying to graduate from college and find a job after graduation while trying to pay your bills on time and find your place in the world life can definitely be both very confusing and very stressful. We have to remember that our 20’s are a learning experience. We will learn in our college classrooms, we will learn about ourselves, and we will also definitely learn a lot about life and how this world works. Everything may not go as we planned but we have to always remember to keep our cool when things don’t go our way.
Use these tips to deal with life’s curveballs in college:
– Make a Plan and a Backup Plan. I am sure that you have heard the saying “Let’s go to Plan B.” Well Plan B means Backup Plan. Not everything will always go as planned so it’s always good to have a second choice, a second option or a backup plan. When you don’t have your heart set on one class, one job or one opportunity it makes the transition easier when you have to go to your backup plan. Plan B is not always the lesser of two choices and therefore it can be just as good of an option as your Plan A.
– Stay Calm and Remove Yourself From the Situation. When something doesn’t go as planned I know it can be easy to get emotional and freak out but the truth is that getting upset doesn’t help the situation and it doesn’t help you resolve the problem. If a situation is too much for you to handle in the heat of the moment then remove yourself from the situation and deal with it later when you have calmed down. Trying to see the bigger picture will help you deal with difficult situations.
– Be Flexible and Take a Deep Breath. My personal motto is that everything will be better in the morning. Adapting to change and being flexible are two qualities that many people need to have if they want to exceed in life. Many employers look for these qualities in potential employees so make sure that you can easily adapt to change if you want to succeed in college and in the workplace. The best example of this is group work. It is very hard to plan a project with five different students who have different schedules, getting your group work assignments done on time takes some flexibility.
Photo by joka
Tahnya is 30 years old and lives in Montreal Quebec. She graduated in 2005 from Concordia University, and she currently works for a major International Financial Institution. She recently launched http://www.mediamadam.ca/. You can follow her on Twitter @TahnyaP.